Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Manual of Indian Timbers: An Account of the Growth, Distribution, and Uses of the Trees and Shrubs of India and Ceylon, With Descriptions of Their Wood-Structure
IN the Introduction to the former edition of this work, published in 1881, a full explanation was given of the circumstances under which its preparation came to be undertaken. The Government of India had prepared for the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 a very fine collection of Indian woods and forest products. The work of collection and preparation had been done in the office of the Inspector General of Forests, at that time Mr. (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis, and as Assistant to the inspector-general, I had executive charge of it. My own interest in the study of woods and wood-structure had been excited while I was a student in 1869 to 1871 at the National School of Forestry at Nancy in France, where I had the advantage of listening to the lectures of the Professor of Natural History, Mons. A. Mathieu, author of the F lore F orestiere de la France; and where I became greatly interested in the collection of wood-specimens arranged in the museum attached to the school. The work carried on in 1877 and 1878 at Simla and Calcutta was there fore to me a labour of love. Several sets of the wood-specimens were prepared: the chief set was sent to Paris, other sets were distributed to the chief Indian Forest offices, to the museum of the Royal Gardens at Kew, and to a few similar institutions in Europe and America; while a special set was reserved for the museum of the Imperial F orest School at Dehra Dim, which had then been just opened. The special Dehra D1'1n set was retained for a time in the office of the inspector-general, and it was arranged that it should be first utilized for the preparation of descriptions of the woods it contained.
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